Swimming with the otters

First of all, we weren't swimming. We were sore and tired after a long day of walking around the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas and Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, so when we found a rocky stretch of beach, we couldn't resist taking off our shoes, rolling up our pants, and wading in the water. I'm pretty sure this was the first time I've ever stuck my feet in the Pacific Ocean. It was cold. And sandy. And cold.

Then of course we had to sit and let our feet dry off before getting back into our shoes and socks, so we were sitting on a wall brushing sand off our toes when someone called out, "Otters!"

And there they were, two frolicsome otters diving and dining beyond the rocks. We had visited the otter exhibit inside the aquarium, but seeing them in the wild was somehow different, special, as if they were our own private personal otters. I wish I could take them home with me but it would be difficult to smuggle them through security ("These are not the otters you are looking for") and it would be hard to make them behave in the overhead bins.

I also wanted to take home the jellyfishes and the kelp forest and the teeny-tiny baby seahorses, but my favorite undersea creatures are the sea dragons. They look as if they were designed by cartoonists to star in a musical involving a great deal of dancing and singing. And swimming. With or without otters.